“They took our oil — we want it back”: why Trump is tying Venezuela to theft, and what he hopes to gain

By Ephraim Agbo 

In December 2025 President Donald Trump escalated a long-running confrontation with Caracas by publicly declaring a “total and complete” blockade of sanctioned oil tankers connected to Venezuela and endorsing seizures of vessels carrying Venezuelan crude. He justified the move with a simple, muscular narrative: Venezuela has “stolen” U.S. oil and assets, so Washington is taking them back. That framing — part legal grievance, part geopolitical show of force, and part domestic messaging — helps explain recent U.S. naval operations near Venezuela and why the White House believes pressure centered on oil is the lever most likely to weaken Nicolás Maduro.

The shorthand: law + history = a pretext

Trump’s rhetoric about “stolen” oil leans on decades of messy legal and diplomatic history. U.S. and international companies lost assets when Venezuela nationalized much of its oil sector beginning in the 1970s and again under Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro. Those nationalizations spawned arbitration claims and scattered awards — some large, others pared back by tribunals — that the U.S. administration now points to as evidence that Caracas owes American firms and, by extension, U.S. interests compensation. Citing those disputes gives political cover to a claim that U.S. assets were taken and therefore can be lawfully pursued.

But the legal field is far from straightforward. Arbitration awards do not automatically translate into title over physical oil or state sovereignty; they are monetary judgments enforceable through courts and, in practice, through diplomatic leverage. The administration’s leap from arbitration awards to naval seizures is therefore a political choice dressed in legal language — defensible rhetorically, far riskier under international law.

Domestic politics and the MAGA energy narrative

There’s a simple political payoff to claiming Venezuela “stole” U.S. oil. It converts a distant foreign-policy dispute into a populist, easily digestible grievance: foreign actors stole American property, and the president is recovering it. That message resonates with a base that prizes strongman posture and economic retribution. It lets the administration look decisive on energy and national wealth at a moment when political audiences reward bold, unilateral action. Advisors have amplified that message: senior aides openly framed Venezuela’s oil industry as built by American capital and therefore subject to reclamation.

Economic pressure as a tool for regime change

Venezuela’s state budget is overwhelmingly dependent on oil revenue. Cutting off the flow of shipments or making it too risky for tankers to operate undermines Caracas’s ability to pay security forces, buy imports, and sustain patronage networks — precisely the levers a foreign power would target to effect political change without a ground invasion. From the administration’s strategic vantage, a blockade and targeted seizures are instruments to squeeze Maduro into concessions or to hasten political fissures within his coalition. That calculation underlies the escalation even as analysts point out the high political and humanitarian costs.

Geopolitics: hitting Venezuela sends messages to others

The itemized benefits are not only bilateral. Venezuela’s energy partnerships have grown closer with Russia, Iran and China, and its tankers sometimes operate in a murky “shadow fleet” that obscures ownership to evade sanctions. By acting against Venezuelan-related shipping, Washington signals determination to constrain actors that bypass Western sanctions — a message aimed at Moscow and Tehran as much as Caracas. But the move also risks widening confrontation: Russia has publicly warned against U.S. action and framed it as a dangerous escalation. That reaction underscores how oil operations can trigger broader geopolitical friction.

The tradeoffs and legal risks

Turning arbitration grievances into maritime seizures raises acute legal and diplomatic problems. International law protects freedom of navigation and state sovereignty; unilateral seizures in another country’s waters or of vessels under ambiguous registry risk being labeled piracy by the target state and drawing international censure. The administration appears to be betting that the moral-political clarity of “we’re taking back stolen property” will blunt criticism, but legal scholars and foreign governments have already questioned the legal basis and warned of destabilizing consequences.

Why this, now? Timing and operational logic

Several converging factors likely explain the timing: (1) a recently publicized seizure (the tanker seizures that Washington has highlighted gave the narrative immediacy); (2) growing concerns in the administration about narcotics flows and criminal networks allegedly financed by oil revenue; and (3) the strategic calculation that a maritime campaign can be sustained with lower domestic political cost than a land intervention. In short: the seizures and the blockade convert longstanding grievances and legal claims into an operational campaign designed to degrade Venezuela’s main revenue stream.

What the administration hopes to gain — and what it may lose

Potential gains: degraded revenue for Maduro; political rallying at home by appearing tough; leverage for a post-crisis settlement where Venezuela pays outstanding arbitration claims or concedes political ground. Potential losses: escalation into broader conflict (especially if other powers push back), legal and diplomatic isolation, retaliation that spikes regional instability and fuels a humanitarian crisis. The calculus appears to be that short-term coercive success is worth those risks — a gamble that centers oil as both prize and weapon.

Conclusion — motive is a mix of grievance, strategy, and politics

Saying “they stole our oil” is at once a legalized narrative, a geopolitical strategy and a domestic political play. For the Trump administration, it turns a long, complex history of nationalizations and arbitration into a crisp moral claim that justifies muscular action. For critics, it’s a dangerous simplification that masks international-law problems and the potential for costly escalation. Either way, the choice reflects a broader U.S. posture: when strategic rivals and sanctions-busting networks move through energy markets, the administration chooses to meet them with coercion on the high seas — and with a slogan designed to make that coercion politically legible at home.